Is It Hypocrisy?
Newt Gingrich has admitted that he was having an adulterous affair at the time he was leading the charge against President Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Now let's agree that having an affair is an unacceptable breach of trust between a husband and a wife. But let's look at the political side of his adultery. Gingrich says he is not a hypocrite because, "The president of the United States got in trouble for committing a felony in front of a sitting federal judge... I drew a line in my mind that said, 'Even though I run the risk of being deeply embarrassed, and even though at a purely personal level I am not rendering judgment on another human being, as a leader of the government trying to uphold the rule of law, I have no choice except to move forward and say that you cannot accept ... perjury in your highest officials." But let's remember, Clinton should have never given that deposition before the court in the first place.
That's right, President Clinton was deposed in the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by Paula Jones. Yet, her case was ultimately dismissed because it had no merit. That means she had not been harmed and as a result, she had no standing to sue the President. The only reason the case lasted long enough to get the President deposed was because she had deep pocket support funding her legal case and her expensive lawyers gamed the system well enough to get the President to testify before their sham was exposed.
So the President should never have been deposed, never put in a situation where he would be asked whether or not he cheated on his wife with a woman who had nothing to do with Paula Jones. And he would have never perjured himself.
Now Ginigrich says that we should not accept perjury in our highest officials. But that is what the Republican controlled Senate did when it did not remove Clinton from office over his testimony. And that is what those who are calling for Libby's pardon are looking to do.
Now how does this relate to Scooter Libby's coonviction for perjury? Here, Libby perjured himself to obstruct justice, to obstruct a criminal investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's covert identity to the press. Is it comparable to Clinton? No. Clinton was not testifying in a criminal investigation, he was testifying in a frivilous civil lawsuit. It is true that ultimately they brought no criminal charges regarding the leak in the Plame case, but Libby was testifying in a criminal investigation, not a civil lawsuit.
The bottom line is that lying under oath is always illegal, but not always equal. Clinton lied to cover a personal affair that hurt only his own family. Libby lied to cover a political affair that sought to hurt someone else's family (Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame) in order to cover up Preisdent Bush's overt lying to the American public to make the case for a war that has clearly been demonstrated as a mistake. Apples and oranges, my friends. Apples and oranges.